Bob Stoops does not think Nick Saban will retire 'anytime soon'

Former Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops is pretty confident in Nick Saban’s time at Alabama carrying on for the foreseeable future.

Despite Saban set to turn 72 years old in the middle of the 2023 season, Stoops said he did not expect Saban to step away from coaching the Crimson Tide “anytime soon” during an exclusive interview with On3 earlier this week. Saban recently finished his 27th season in college football as a head coach and 29th overall between college and the NFL.

The seven-time national champion head coach is expected to keep going though amid tons of success at Alabama and Stoops made the prediction.

“I mean, you know, Coach Saban, Nick has been a family friend for a long time,” Stoops said. “Knew my father well. In fact, that’s where it all began. He knew my father as an assistant high school coach. Anyway, yeah, I could see (Saban still coaching), I don’t see him going away anytime soon. So, good for him. You know, Coach Saban does an incredible job. He loves the game. He obviously loves what he does and more power to him. 

“I applaud him and of course, he’s a great coach but again for me, he’s been a great family friend for a great number of years. Anyway, it goes — like I said, it goes way back to my father as a high school coach and my uncle, a high school coach that he was very good friends with.”

Saban is 189-27 overall at Alabama, winning six national titles and 280-69-1 in his career. The seventh national title was won at LSU.

At the very least, Saban did not think about the end once Alabama dominated Kansas State in the Sugar Bowl. He already looked ahead to next fall.

“Well, I think every team has to go through a process of development,” Saban said after the Sugar Bowl. “We have a lot of new players on the team. The roster changes more than it normally does, based on the significance of the portal and transferring and a lot of things that are happening in college football right now.

“So we want to just continue to try to develop our guys, get them to trust and believe in the process of what they need to do to be the best players that they can be. And when recruits come in, they’re going to come in at varying levels of development and maturity to be able to be ready to play or not play.”

Saban maintained going about Alabama;s process was the key to continued success in the future.

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“So all those things are a lot of unknowns that you just got to see how it all sort of fits together,” Saban said. “But I think when everybody respects and trusts the principles and values of the organization and the standard, you have a much better chance to develop a team.

“And leadership is always something that is a big part of that as well. And we have enjoyed really good leadership on this team, primarily because of the two guys sitting next to me. But we’ve had some other good leaders on this team as well.”